Month: August 2016

Blame Wikipedia for putting that fantasy in my head. I remember reading up on tea customs in European countries, and there was a sub-section on East Frisia. It was one of the few regions in Germany that even had a tea culture to speak of.

In mid-June, I made a trip to Las Vegas for World Tea Expo, 2016. (As you, fair reader, already know.) It fueled at least six blogs that took me all summer to write about. (They can all be found on my tea blog.) But there was one tale I forgot to tell. It only . . . “kinda” has to do with tea.

I had one more day in Vegas after that whirlwind convention week. For some reason, I scheduled a flight for two days after the Expo. I figured I needed a day to decompress, and—as luck had it—I had friends in the area. Team Bootleg Botanicals—Ryan and Melanie Belshee—agreed to put me up for the night.

The man in my crappy photo is Jeffrey McIntosh. Granted, his version of spelling “Geoffrey” is not the original—as mine is—but no one is perfect. However, he does hold the distinct honor of being one of the first people (younger than me) to blow my mind. During a talk he gave at the festival, he mentioned that puerh teas all came from different cultivars from one tea tree variety—the Camellia sinensis var. assamica.

Okay, for the very well-educated tea geek, that’s not exactly earth-shattering news. But four years ago, that changed my whole worldview, man. I thought that variety only grew in Assam, India because of the name.

About a year ago, I was called upon by a tea vendor to write about tisanes made from holly species. Various caffeinated infusions have been made from holly plants—guayusa, yaupon, and the granddaddy of ‘em all, yerba mate. But in my research, I ran across a beverage made from a holly plant . . . in China.

The species of holly? Ilex kudingcha (sometimes referred to as Ilex kashue). The beverage? Kuding Cha. The name translated roughly to “bitter nail tea”. As the name implies, it had a very bitter taste if over-brewed. And, like its Western cousins, it was also (quite possibly) caffeinated.

After learning of that interesting bit of information, I didn’t pay it any mind. I knew no one who carried it. But then I saw a striking picture by one of my vendor acquaintances on Instagram—Nomad Tea Merchant. They carried Kuding Cha.